I already have a charger, forget the USB charging for a second, its my fault for mentioning it as its more if a personal preference. lets just focus on lumens per $ in multi cell configuration. (no single cells for the sake of the post we are only mentioning multi cell lights for dependable battery life)
YES! multi cell high lumens excite me too. Of course I don’t have to go into detail about Sustained lumens, (longer) yes we are talking about SUSTAINED output lumens so heating and brightness drop is a factor and trying to figure out the highest lumen muti cell with the least overheating and lumen output drop under $150 dollars. logic dictates the bigger the head and thicker the aluminium, the longer it takes to overheat. also how many LEDs? 3 to 4 is good enough, anything over 4 makes overheating faster.
The Sofirn Q8 Pro is very attractive indeed, and i’m likely to get one just for fun. But i doubt it has enough meat and fins to handle 10k+ lumens very long.
FWIW, just another voice to share about max lumens — this is not very meaningful when you consider how long a light can sustain that output. Many lights that boast high lumens (2k) or more output end up dropping down to less than half that within 15~60 seconds.
Basically, I’d be more concerned about throw vs. flood, beam tint, supported battery types, and features like USB-C charging port.
And frankly, if you’re looking to deal with spotting a variety of things both close and far, get yourself 2 lights — a good flooder and a good thrower. Rarely does one light do both very well at a fair price. Or something that’s more of a thrower, then use a diffuser to generate more of a floody beam.
I guess by factchecking the original Q8 thermal performance we can kind of predict how this one will fare. I’m gonna look this up right now.
EDIT: sheesh ok so here are the findings, they are dissapointing…
start Quote “At the end of the runtime, the light started flickering, so I stopped the test. I wasn’t sure if I was damaging the batteries or how deep they were discharged. When I took them out, they were measuring between 3.1 and 3.2 Volts each. So that was still not too bad.
During the runtime test, the flashlight got extremely hot. I could smell it (heat from the metal/aluminum) and I could hear the flashlight ticking. You can actually hear that in the following video. And I don’t recommend copying me, because batteries don’t really like this, and got me wondering why it doesn’t have a thermal step down (safety feature).“End Quote
its safe to assume it will have similar performance and a more severe step down & more heat due to higher lumens. and to think the q8 is the bigger bulkier of the listed lights with more fins… id fear to see what the drop down is on the other listed lights here…
my eyes are locked on the convoy now as they usually have way better heat handling. Convoy 3x21a in xhp50.2 or xhp70.2!
I should change the title to Highest Sustained Lumens per $
yes indeed the title is confusing some, I’ve changed it to highest sustained lumens per $. in other words which provides the highest sustained lumens per $ as a flooder.
i already have 2 lights, one flooder ‘convoy m3-c xhp70.2’ and one thrower convoy ‘m21a culpm1’. this is more of a comparison for now.
I think the Sofirn Q8 Pro may be next on my list of lights I dont need. When Nitecore came out with their Tiny Monster series, it cost a fortune, like $350 fortune. This is quite nice for $65.
From the looks of the Q8 runtime graph, The M3-C seems to do better with only one 26650. I’m surprised at this considering 4 x 18650 capacity.
I know its probably to do with the superior heat management, thicker aluminium and more fins? m3-c sits at 1500lm consistantly till battery runs out, but i wana know if there is better? for q8 pro and other names lights above its like a muscle car with 1000whp but if you cant put the power down its useless and only for bragging rights. the quest continues for the highest consistent/continuous lumen output flashlight under $150
yes they always deliver value, sofirn and convoy
Yeah, I remember drooling over that Tiny Monster TM-26 when it came out some years back. But the price? Insane. And then, even if you wanted to pick up a used one, emitters are now replaced by better ones… Sofirn Q8 delivers tremendous power for the price.
There was a good price recently, but it’s back to normal unfortunately: The TrustFire T62 runs on 3 18650 constanly at 2500 lm for about 110 min.
That’s currently 2500 * 110 / 82 in terms of [lm*minutes/dollars] (use RMS in the counter for drivers doing stepdowns)
oh nice, first time i hear about this brand, 2500lm probably more than most these listed lights can handle consistently, however doesn’t that seem kinda low still?
Depends on what is important/necessary to you. More lumens = more weight. I’m by no means an expert, but I think TrustFire uses good drivers and designs for heat dissipation, so this seems to be close to the optimum in this class of lights.
That said, the T62 is somewhat antique with a not-so-nice UI and an old XHP70. They have more modern lights (in terms of LED and UI) on offer with more to come. A current model (that I do not own) ist the brand new 3T6 Pro. I’m waiting for one to review. Maybe worth the wait, since I think the T62 is good, but right now too expensive.
TrustFire ist the best cheap **Fire-Brand out there - Became famous for their protected 2400mAh 18650s 10 years ago. Good cells for very little money. I still have mine.
But as far as I know, they rebrand a lot of cheap flashlights, which makes it hard to say, that they are “good” - they have good flashlights, but they also have a lot of crappy ones.
They are far away from known good brands like Convoy, Astrolux or Sofirn - from those you can basically buy anything and it will be at least decent.
For me, the time of double- or triple cells in series in a long handle is over - even the soda Can lights can be put in your pants pocket if you need to, but those long lights don’t really fit.
And now with modern 21700 you can have so much power out of a small-ish light - and for me that shows on the market. 10 Years back, those multiple XM-L Lights with 2 or 3 Cells were quite popular, but nowadays they are kinda rare as far as I see.
L4M4, neither the T62 nor the 3T6 Pro are OEM’ed cheapos. I wouldn’t have recommended those lights if they were.
The arrangement of the batteries is owed to the target audience. But having used it for some time now, I like the classic arrangement over pop can lights, even if I may not mount the light to a gun.
Their new lights will probably come with 21700 compatibility (like the T90R), still able to be mounted to a rifle.
And saying those models are inferior to the Astroluxes and Sofirns is just not true. They are vastly different.
for the sake of affordability and accessibility lets not list any old lights 
but given the full size light the trustfire t62 is, im sure the convoy L6 or the sofirn sp70 can outclass it in performance? than again we are talking about full size lights here, seems like convoy lights perform better than sofirn for extended period of time, i mean the m3-c is out performing some big lights here.
for example it is outperforming the full size sp70 which drops to 1000lm after 30 min of run time (yeh it does give 5000lm for 10 mins at the beginning than drops to 3200lm-2800lm for the next 20 mins) than drops to 1000lm for the remainder of the the graph till battery runs out , while the m3c can hold 1500lm for 2 hrs till the battery runs out. the convoy 4x18a performs the same as the m3-c give or take a few lms.
lets throw in the convoy L6, in turbo runs no lower than 3600lm to the lowest 3000lms in the first hour than it drops for the next 10 min when the battery runs out. i think as far as sustained lumens for under $150 goes we will not see better than these.
That q8 pro looks nice. Looks to be sold out if I’m seeing things right.
your not, its actually on sale on aliexpress (with batteries) $73.31 plus %10 off with coupon so remove another 7 dollars or so. im not buying yet as i have not seen a review about performance and heat handling, I just cant without knowing. for me it will be either:
sofirn Q8 Pro vs Convoy 3x21a in 3x xhp50.2 or we can dream about 3x xhp70.2 (there is no reviews for neither, too early)
im leaning towards the convoy because from history we can be sure that it will have better heat handling, and it takes 3x 21700 5000mah batteries. both are rechargeable.
I have the original Sofirn Q8, which indeed heats up quite fast when on turbo and steps down within just one minute or so.
I have been following comments about the “better” heat dissipation of Convoy 3 x 21a with interest. Still undecided whether I want Sofirn Q8 Pro.